An ode to the death of Tilt

One girl's eulogy to the payment platform that stole our hearts

A late night Quarter Pounder meal from McDonald’s, Ed Sheeran concert tickets, a 2-6 of Smirnoff vodka I was too lazy to pick up myself, and supplies for post-finals jungle juice – what do these four things have in common? I used Tilt to pay my housemates back for all of them.

With the recent acquisition of Tilt by Airbnb, many students have been left to mourn an all-too convenient payment platform that they got to enjoy for what seems like far too brief a time.

For the clubs and conferences on campus that formally used Tilt to collect registration and event fees, this must be an administrative nightmare for them. But let’s talk about what it means for people like me.

I don’t know about you people reading this, but once my friends and I discovered Tilt, we used it for absolutely everything. I mean everything – like one time when I was drunk, I tilted my housemate $6.99 to make me a bagel with cream cheese. True story.

Okay, that may not be the best example of Tilt improving the quality of my financial transactions, but you get my point.

Tilt made the concept of taking out cash to bring to a St. Patty’s day kegger seem utterly archaic, and made the prospect of collecting money as stress-free and simple as can be.

Now that Tilt has died its tragic $12 million death – leaving Canada with no comparable alternative – we’ve reverted back to the dark ages of exchanging bills hand to hand, or facing pesky e-transfer fees from banks.

Not only that, but now I can’t even keep track of who owes me money, what for and how much. With Tilt, holding people accountable was easy – you could request booze money while simultaneously exiting the LCBO. Not to mention being able to then send annoying reminders all night until you got that satisfying notification: “Your money is on the way!”

Gone were the days where your housemates were hesitant to pick up toilet paper for fear they’d never be paid back. Gone were the days of struggling to keep mental tallies of who had paid you for gas money and who hadn’t – balancing your debts was always just one finger tap away.

Plus, if you’re as spacey and forgetful as I am, receiving those constant reminders to pay other people back was just as helpful as it was being able to send them out.

Let’s face it, I always mean to pay my friends back, but if it weren’t for Tilt, I’m sure I would’ve found myself unintentionally indebted to them more often than I’d like to admit.

Tilt helped curb my cluelessness, and I was on top of every last cent that I owed my friends – I’d have paid my housemate back for each McDonald’s meal before we’d even left the drive through, every single time.

So, here’s to you, Tilt – I will think of you with every trip I make to an ATM and every text I send chasing down friends who owe me money. May your replacement come quickly and be just as efficient.

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